Spanish colonization and Indian property in central Mexico, 1521-1620. PREM, H. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(3):444–459, 1992. ![Spanish colonization and Indian property in central Mexico, 1521-1620 [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper doi abstract bibtex After the conquest of Mexico (1519-21), the Spaniards coopted Indian administrative structures, allowing the King and the new Colonial government to exploit traditional regional revenues. Key participants of the military campaigns were rewarded with rights to the tribute and limited labor conscription (encomienda) required of the indigenous population in a particular district. Legally, encomienda did not confer property rights, but holders of the privilege also received most of the earliest land grants and had the advantage of conscript labor during the planting and harvest seasons. As the encomienda system was gradually reformed and phased out, agriculture and stockraising became the major source of rural income for increasing numbers of Spanish settlers. Public land was overwhelmingly awarded to officials, the military, and the Colonial elite. Following the failure of the Puebla experiment (1531-34), designed to create a new class of farmers with small holdings, agricultural work was relegated to Indian labor. Property became the focus of competition between Spaniard and Indian, ending with partial dispossession of Indian lands by the early 1600s. The granting of lands (mercedes) is explicated by three examples: the Basin of Mexico, the district northwest of Puebla, and the Valley of Toluca. Archival documentation of land grants provides a powerful tool to decipher regional settlement histories and to examine the degree to which the Spanish legal system safeguarded Indian property rights. Spanish agricultural expansion was made possible by the Indian demographic collapse, as a result of recurrent epidemics, and was facilitated by Indian settlement amalgamation (congregacion). While the processes and temporal patterns of property transfer show structural similarities in the heart of Central Mexico, settlement histories in peripheral areas are unique. The means by which Indian communities slowed Spanish expansion are discussed. The pattern of dispossession of the Indian was established during the first hundred years, setting in motion a process that culminated with the powerful haciendas of the nineteenth century.
@article{prem_spanish_1992,
series = {Latin {America} / {Caribbean}},
title = {Spanish colonization and {Indian} property in central {Mexico}, 1521-1620},
volume = {82},
url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/2563355},
doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8306.1992.tb01969.x},
abstract = {After the conquest of Mexico (1519-21), the Spaniards coopted Indian administrative structures, allowing the King and the new Colonial government to exploit traditional regional revenues. Key participants of the military campaigns were rewarded with rights to the tribute and limited labor conscription (encomienda) required of the indigenous population in a particular district. Legally, encomienda did not confer property rights, but holders of the privilege also received most of the earliest land grants and had the advantage of conscript labor during the planting and harvest seasons. As the encomienda system was gradually reformed and phased out, agriculture and stockraising became the major source of rural income for increasing numbers of Spanish settlers. Public land was overwhelmingly awarded to officials, the military, and the Colonial elite. Following the failure of the Puebla experiment (1531-34), designed to create a new class of farmers with small holdings, agricultural work was relegated to Indian labor. Property became the focus of competition between Spaniard and Indian, ending with partial dispossession of Indian lands by the early 1600s. The granting of lands (mercedes) is explicated by three examples: the Basin of Mexico, the district northwest of Puebla, and the Valley of Toluca. Archival documentation of land grants provides a powerful tool to decipher regional settlement histories and to examine the degree to which the Spanish legal system safeguarded Indian property rights. Spanish agricultural expansion was made possible by the Indian demographic collapse, as a result of recurrent epidemics, and was facilitated by Indian settlement amalgamation (congregacion). While the processes and temporal patterns of property transfer show structural similarities in the heart of Central Mexico, settlement histories in peripheral areas are unique. The means by which Indian communities slowed Spanish expansion are discussed. The pattern of dispossession of the Indian was established during the first hundred years, setting in motion a process that culminated with the powerful haciendas of the nineteenth century.},
language = {en},
number = {3},
journal = {Annals of the Association of American Geographers},
author = {PREM, Hanns},
year = {1992},
keywords = {Region: Latin America / Caribbean, Language: English},
pages = {444--459},
file = {PREM - 1992 - Spanish colonization and Indian property in centra.pdf:/Users/bastien/Zotero/storage/UWSJFC4Z/PREM - 1992 - Spanish colonization and Indian property in centra.pdf:application/pdf},
}
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Legally, encomienda did not confer property rights, but holders of the privilege also received most of the earliest land grants and had the advantage of conscript labor during the planting and harvest seasons. As the encomienda system was gradually reformed and phased out, agriculture and stockraising became the major source of rural income for increasing numbers of Spanish settlers. Public land was overwhelmingly awarded to officials, the military, and the Colonial elite. Following the failure of the Puebla experiment (1531-34), designed to create a new class of farmers with small holdings, agricultural work was relegated to Indian labor. Property became the focus of competition between Spaniard and Indian, ending with partial dispossession of Indian lands by the early 1600s. The granting of lands (mercedes) is explicated by three examples: the Basin of Mexico, the district northwest of Puebla, and the Valley of Toluca. 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